So I think it passes the giggle test, but I'm not sure it passes the truth-in-advertising test. After reading a bit more, they have 3 models, and only the most expensive professional model with 18 sensors could even approach what they show in the videos. In one of the independent 3rd party tests, let's just say they still have some issues to work out. It's apparently not quite ready for prime time, and may never reach consumer price points for the type of capability they show in their videos.

edit: I note this in the FCC rules, 15.510(e):
"Through-wall imaging systems operating under the provisions of this section shall bear the following or similar statement in a conspicuous location on the device: “Operation of this device is restricted to law enforcement, emergency rescue and firefighter personnel. Operation by any other party is a violation of 47 U.S.C. 301 and could subject the operator to serious legal penalties.”"

I guess they get around this because it's not being sold as "through the wall"

I don't know about you, but I've tried several different ultrasonic stud sensors over the years, and none of them are very dependable. So they just collect dust and I usually go with the tried-and-true manual approach of using magnets to find the general line of the nails in the drywall, then I pound in pin nails on either side of that line to get the exact edges of the stud(s) so I can be sure the screw is going in the center.

This gadget would have definite advantages over those types of stud sensors, if it worked as advertised and reached a reasonable price point for the 18 sensor model.

Also I think the real-time imaging bandwidth to the smartphone is too high to use bluetooth, so they use (wired) USB if the 3rd part video I saw is correct.

I've been remodeling houses for years and really don't understand why anyone would need to spend money on these sorts of things. I can use my knuckle on my hand to locate any stud. For water lines and electrical lines, there are codes for people installing them to prevent people from accidentally putting a nail or screw in them by putting them at certain depths in the wall cavity or installing plates to prevent punctures when they are shallow. Most accidental punctures I have seen have been caused by someone using three inch screws to hang a small picture, i.e. wrong fastener choice for the job.

For water lines and electrical lines, there are codes for people installing them to prevent people from accidentally putting a nail or screw in them by putting them at certain depths in the wall cavity or installing plates to prevent punctures when they are shallow.

I highly recommend randomly putting a bunch of nails in your wall since every single person knows and follows the codes 100%.

For water lines and electrical lines, there are codes for people installing them to prevent people from accidentally putting a nail or screw in them by putting them at certain depths in the wall cavity or installing plates to prevent punctures when they are shallow.

I highly recommend randomly putting a bunch of nails in your wall since every single person knows and follows the codes 100%.

Using a knuckle I can repeatedly put a nail in a stud. It doesn't have to be in the "exact center". No I would not be comfortable hanging and expensive tv, cabinets or heavy shelves with a nail pounded into a stud. However, with the correct fasteners and brackets, I have hung all those many times over without incident. It is extremely easy to tell when a fastener misses a stud by the resistance or lack there of it offers when driving it in.

With your second statement you are missing the point. I don't know anyone who randomly puts nails in a wall. I only randomly put nails in studs and even then not totally random. Most things hung on the wall are up four to six feet in the air while most electrical and plumbing items are run along the lower portions of the wall or vertically in stud bays. I also specify that I use the appropriate sized fastener. A one and a half inch nail is plenty strong enough to hold the average picture frame up on a wall and only penetrates a stud maybe three quarters of an inch. Most plumbing or wiring is centers in a stud which is 2-1/4 inches from the wall surface. If one must drill in a stud bay where plumbing and electrical could possibly be, I gently drill a small hole and use a feeler gauge, my finger, to assure there isn't anything nearby before continuing.

I agree about rapping with a knuckle. Also, if you ever open a wall, take pictures!

Studs are spaced 16" on center. If you see an electric outlet, it's nailed to the side of a stud. rap into until you figure out which side it's on, then measure 16" and rap again. I'm not a pro and it works every time, even on insulated walls.

Several months ago I purchased a Walabot. The idea excited me at first to think that I could simply connect a device to my phone and images of where studs are located in the wall would appear. I'm a general contractor, and I work with an interior designer who designs model units for condominiums. As such I it is very important for me to NOT to use nails to determine where studs are located, and I have to have a more reliable approach than just tapping my knuckles on the wall. I have been using a standard beeping style stud finder, but found that it was somewhat of a hassle. So I felt it was worth the effort and funds to invest in a more reliable and more efficient method to locate studs within a wall. Thus, I purchased a Walabot.

Here's my experience. Straight out of the box it took a little time to get it going, and at the first attempt it found a stud and to my surprise, it was a great image and the stud was exactly where it said it was suppose to be. However, as I have needed to use on several jobs for my clients, it has never worked consistently, and I tend to spend more time recalibrating the device and even then, it may show one stud, but fails on additional attempts and even sometimes even after recalibrating, it doesn't show the stud again that I located with the device. I know the device fails because, studs are usually 16" to 24" apart. So after 5 to 10 minutes trying to get the device to be consistent, I revert back to the beeper style that I thought was a hassle. It's still a hassle, but tends to be more reliable.

That's been my beef with the Walabot. I've tried on 3 occasions and 3 different job sites to find studs with the Walabot. I have contacted the company several times and each time they respond with the same advice... re-calibrate. I have spent far more time re-calibrating, than I would have using my beeper style of stud finder. Which by the way I am continuing to use because the Walabot has been so unreliable and their support is not very supportive. I have suggested that my device might be faulty and that I would be willing to replace the device with a more reliable one. There has been no positive response to that request.

As far as I'm concerned the Walabot is and has been a waste of my money and time.

As a separate note to comments about finding studs by using tapping nails into the walls makes me cringe. I developed a method that has proven successful in locating studs. It takes a little bit more time, but you don't end up with a line of nail holes in a wall that end up needing to be filled. I use a long straight pin, or a needle. I use a small tapper hammer and once the straight pin passes through the drywall material, you'll know right a way if there's a stud because it will stop and you'll hear a deep sound. If the stud's not there, the additional tap of the hammer will send the pin further into the wall and it will be easy to extract. Thus, when removing the pin, all you have is a small pin hole, easy to patch if necessary but usually not because it's not very noticable.

there are codes for people installing them to prevent people from accidentally putting a nail or screw in them by putting them at certain depths in the wall cavity or installing plates to prevent punctures when they are shallow.

And then there are the idiots (prior owners) that worked on my house... There are so many things wrong that I'm still doing triage -- electrical, natural gas, plumbing, septic, water, vents (directly into the attic space), etc. That guy was a licensed general contractor...

I would never trust that something was built to code -- especially residential construction.

Several months ago I purchased a Walabot. The idea excited me at first to think that I could simply connect a device to my phone and images of where studs are located in the wall would appear. I'm a general contractor, and I work with an interior designer who designs model units for condominiums. As such I it is very important for me to NOT to use nails to determine where studs are located, and I have to have a more reliable approach than just tapping my knuckles on the wall. I have been using a standard beeping style stud finder, but found that it was somewhat of a hassle. So I felt it was worth the effort and funds to invest in a more reliable and more efficient method to locate studs within a wall. Thus, I purchased a Walabot.

Here's my experience. Straight out of the box it took a little time to get it going, and at the first attempt it found a stud and to my surprise, it was a great image and the stud was exactly where it said it was suppose to be. However, as I have needed to use on several jobs for my clients, it has never worked consistently, and I tend to spend more time recalibrating the device and even then, it may show one stud, but fails on additional attempts and even sometimes even after recalibrating, it doesn't show the stud again that I located with the device. I know the device fails because, studs are usually 16" to 24" apart. So after 5 to 10 minutes trying to get the device to be consistent, I revert back to the beeper style that I thought was a hassle. It's still a hassle, but tends to be more reliable.

That's been my beef with the Walabot. I've tried on 3 occasions and 3 different job sites to find studs with the Walabot. I have contacted the company several times and each time they respond with the same advice... re-calibrate. I have spent far more time re-calibrating, than I would have using my beeper style of stud finder. Which by the way I am continuing to use because the Walabot has been so unreliable and their support is not very supportive. I have suggested that my device might be faulty and that I would be willing to replace the device with a more reliable one. There has been no positive response to that request.

As far as I'm concerned the Walabot is and has been a waste of my money and time.

As a separate note to comments about finding studs by using tapping nails into the walls makes me cringe. I developed a method that has proven successful in locating studs. It takes a little bit more time, but you don't end up with a line of nail holes in a wall that end up needing to be filled. I use a long straight pin, or a needle. I use a small tapper hammer and once the straight pin passes through the drywall material, you'll know right a way if there's a stud because it will stop and you'll hear a deep sound. If the stud's not there, the additional tap of the hammer will send the pin further into the wall and it will be easy to extract. Thus, when removing the pin, all you have is a small pin hole, easy to patch if necessary but usually not because it's not very noticable.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the review. What do you calibrate against? Do you have to find a section of wall you know is blank and then tell it when it goes over a stud? Sounds like the company wont be around too long...

I have a lower end beeper stud finder (tells me when i hit an edge of a stud along with electrical) that was accurate in my old (newer) house but my new (older) house it is nearly useless. Long 10" stretches of "stud" followed by nothing for 24 inches when I know for sure there is a stud in the area. Its not plaster and lathe either, normal drywall.

My usual practice now is to use a collection of rare earth magnets to find the drywall screws. I start with one that's maybe 3/4 inch in diameter by 3/16 thick. I just rub it over the wall until it finds a screw, then replace it with a 3/8 in diameter one (which locates the screw head more precisely then the big one, but would be slow to use for the search). I have several of the small ones, and locate several screws in the desired stud. That lets you notice if one screw is off to the edge of the stud.

I got a “developer” model from Walabot for a research project and it is both incredible and underwhelming. The “developer” model has much better resolution with 15 antennas vs 3 antenna on the consumer models. It also doesn’t connect to a phone or any app - you have to write your own code to access data on a computer. Once I got it set up and played with it, it felt a little gimmicky at first. It can sense through some material but quickly loses calibration and starts giving bad data.

After looking at the actual raw data being generated by the device, it is doing some remarkable sensing. But the data has a ton of variables looks very noisy and hard to properly analyze into a ready to use off the shelf product. I was able to sense my breathing through a wall in a different room using a custom written program.

I mean, the thing is an ultra-wideband (x-band, 6-10Ghz) microwave radar. And not simple pulsed or phase array radar, but something called MIMO radar. This is pretty exotic technology by any standard. Crazy to think it’s even being sold in stores. Too bad it ends up feeling like a fancy toy. I think the company rushed to get something to stores without focusing on providing real utility.